Supreme Court approves lowering of NEET super speciality admission percentile to fill vacant seats

The Supreme Court on Thursday approved the Centre’s decision to reduce the qualifying percentile for admission to National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test super-speciality (NEET-SS) courses from 50th to 30th percentile to fill around 1,800 vacant super-speciality seats across the country.

A bench of justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe passed the order after the government said the decision was taken following the court’s suggestion to reduce the admission percentile to ensure seats do not go waste in the NEET-SS 2025 counselling, with two rounds already completed and a stray vacancy round proposed to be held by the Directorate General Health Services.

On a reconsideration, the Centre has decided to reduce the percentile “to ensure that the available Super Speciality seats do not remain vacant and that the available training capacity is optimally utilised,” additional solicitor general (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Centre, told the court.

“Such reduction would make approximately 6,000 additional candidates eligible for participation. This would provide a candidate pool of approximately three times the number of presently vacant seats of 1,857,” said the ASG.

NEET-SS is a national-level entrance exam for doctors who want to enter advanced medical super-speciality programmes, such as Doctorate of Medicine (DM), Master of Chirurgiae (MCh), and Diplomate of National Board (DrNB). The exam was held in December 2025 and results were declared a month later. However, 1,857 seats remained unfilled following two rounds of counseling, prompting appeals for a special stray vacancy round.

The vacant seats will be offered only to candidates who have not availed a seat in the previous rounds of counselling and who become eligible consequent upon the reduction of the qualifying percentile, Bhati said, cutting short the demands for upgradation of candidates who have already enrolled in a course in the earlier rounds.

The court also approved the Centre’s decision to revert 40 of the total super-speciality seats to in-service doctors in Tamil Nadu who are serving in rural areas.